


The Life After

by blackeyedgurl



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, Darkness, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Feels, Heartbreak, Hope, Ice Cream, Love, Smut, Wine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-01 06:20:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2762831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedgurl/pseuds/blackeyedgurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A box. It's strange how such an innocent object could change everything. </p>
<p>Oliver Queen left to battle Ra's al Ghul two weeks ago, and no one has heard from him since. In one moment, Felicity's life goes from what she knows, to everything that comes after. Who is she now? Who will she become?</p>
<p>Spoilers through 3x09</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story started as something completely different. Then, it took on a life of it's own. If you can't tell, the midseason finale kicked me in the gut, then it kicked me again and again and again.
> 
> If you are looking for fluff, I suggest you turn back now. Yes, there are moments of humor, but this path is long, and twisty and it's not very well lit. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's just a really long tunnel.
> 
> If you want to post a rec on Tumblr, please do! Just follow me (ladybast), and tag me and we'll be all good! Yay for new friends!
> 
> None of these characters are mine, but I wish they were. Many thanks, as always, to JennyGirl7 for reading my stuff and telling me if I am insane, insanely cruel, or should go back to my other hobbies (none of which are puppy kicking, which you might suspect after getting through this).

The night that Oliver leaves, sleep doesn't come easily. She's sure that she isn't the only one who can't stop staring at their phone. Willing it to ring, for the comforting ping of an incoming text, any sign of life, of his life. She knows he has to travel, he didn't tell them where. Not knowing when or where this fight, this trial, was happening was eating her alive. 

Four hours.

Five hours.

The time drags on. It's not a countdown, it's a count-up, which isn't as fun, as there is no anticipated end. There is no expected point of completion.

Her last recollection of the time was nine and a half hours. She fell asleep some time after that.

_Felicity dreams of falling, she's so cold, and there is a sick sense of nothing, of emptiness, surrounding her. The light around her seems to swell, and just as suddenly it fades. It fades into darkness. She sees nothing, but feels it when her body slams into hard stone._

She wakes in a sweat, the first rays of sunlight are pouring through her window, lighting the space. Filling the darkness. Dancing across her face.

Oliver has been gone for eleven hours and twenty-seven minutes. According to her dream dictionary, this falling dream means she's either letting go of something or holding on too tight. Right this minute, she isn't sure that she's not doing both.


	2. Time of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your life can change in a moment. And nothing is the same ever again. 
> 
> It's the beginning of Felicity's after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know we're all having a rough time right now, so I thought I'd make it worse.
> 
> _Italics are character thoughts_

It had been two weeks since Oliver left Star(ling, she'd never quite get over the rebranding of the city she called home) City. While two weeks seemed like way too long to go, fight a battle, win, and return home from, Felicity was living in what she had come to call the "No News is Good News Life Bubble." She continued on, persisted exactly as she had before. She went to work every day, she helped Diggle and Roy at night. She evaded Ray's advances. She slept, she ate, she lived, sort of.

And then it happened. A fissure in her personal time line opened up, and her life broke into two pieces, the time before, and the time since The Box. It wasn't the first time it had happened. There was the time before dad left, and everything after. There was the time before Cooper and the time after. The afters were never 'Happily Afters' they always just became life, and the time was broken into before and now.

She was sitting at her desk, firing off an email to her code monkeys about how they needed to stop pushing new code to Prod without running it through the Dev environment, when her office door opened.

"Jerry, I'm fine, I will go get lunch for myself after I'm done with this email." She never even looked up, as this had become her daily routine: herd cats, send emails, tell Jerry to chill, avoid Ray, rinse and repeat.

"Miss Smoak." The voice was familiar, but not Jerry. She looked up to see Malcolm Merlyn dressed in the typical gear of a courier. Under one arm was a medium sized box. "I received this earlier today, but it doesn't belong to me."

"What is it?"

"I didn't look inside, but I know the message."

She could feel the quiet rage building in her belly, _How dare he come into this building, into MY office? AND have the audacity to speak in weird vagueness?!?!_ She eyed him as he set the box down in front of her. He bowed to her, and turned to leave.

"Did you just bow at me?"

"It's tradition, in the League," he clarified, "at times like this." His voice was reverent, almost respectful. He turned back to the exit.

"Malcolm?" she asked, he stopped and only looked back to see her, "If I ever see you in this building again, you will regret it."

He didn't reply, just offered a smug look of indignation and vanished as he stepped through the door. Felicity shook her head, _people don't just vanish, keep it together Smoak._

The. Box. Good things came in boxes, boxes were one of those items that Felicity had thought way too much about. Boxes held new computers, birthday presents shipped from distant relations, cereal, action figures, Amazon wish list purchases, DVDs, jewelry, shoes, and occasionally cats (especially on the internet); in fact, there were very few terrible things that came in boxes. Boxes were not the sort of object that inspired terror in her. But of course, that was in the TBTB (Time Before The Box), and this was about to be minute one of the TATB (Time After the Box).

It was barely a foot square, by no means could it hold very much, _this is not him, this cannot hold him._ The midday light poured through her window, reflecting on and changing the box from black to gold. It was a trick of the light, and had she not been filled with a creeping dread, it would have almost been pretty. A simple golden spur looped through a hitch to kept it closed. There was no lock.

It looked like a relic from another time.

She opened it and saw its limited contents. There was a scroll tied with a white silk ribbon. The dread began to creep north. Beneath it, a parcel wrapped in dark green rice paper, bound with vivid red and yellow raffia. She gently placed her hand on the parcel, it was soft, it had give, _these are not bones._

She picked up the scroll, the paper was handmade, the silk was whisper soft against her fingers. She gently pulled one end and released the ribbon from it's own grip. It fell into the box.

Slowly she unfurled the scroll and saw it only contained 4 words, hand painted in elegant calligraphy. The paint was a stunning blue. _That blue._ It was Oliver blue, the color of his eyes when he smiled. At the bottom of the page were two square imprints which appeared to be a signature. She had seen markings like this before, on Asian art, they were wood blocks carved and dipped in ink. The color though, there was something about it, _it's blood._

The Debt is Paid

For a single second she was confused, then the dread crawled out of her. She dropped the scroll into the box and nearly dove for her trash can. Dread escaped her in waves of hazelnut latte infused vomit. 

She wasn't sure exactly what the time of death was on the TBTB ; if it was when she untied the scroll, when she read it, or when the contents of her stomach splattered the inside of her brand new Palmer Technologies Waste Management Receptacle. She hoped she hadn't thrown up in the one for recycling only. She reasoned with herself that puke was recycled food. 

Once she was empty she kneeled, and attempted to stand. Her legs failed her. She reached up and grabbed her desk, intent on pulling herself up, but her arms too failed her. 

Footsteps. She heard footsteps approaching her, rushing to her, and for a single golden moment, she felt hope. _Oliver? This was all a mistake, this was all a sick joke. Merlyn was totally capable of this._ She closed her eyes, and felt hands reach beneath her armpits and lift her to her chair. _Please, please, just this once, be right..._

Her heart sank into the empty chasm where her stomach used to live as she felt a thumb brush the tears from her cheek. The digit lacked the callus she knew so well, the touch lacked the taut string of so many swallowed words, the warmth was missing, there was nothing familiar about it, _this wasn't Oliver._

At that moment, her ears failed her, all she heard was a dull ringing. She opened her eyes, and staring at her was Ray Palmer. _Damn these glass walls._ His mouth was moving quickly, but she heard nothing. His eyes were brown, and they were too big, they were always opened so wide that he looked like he lived in constant shock. They were the wrong eyes.

 _Shock._ Even in this state she had the sense of mind to reach forward and shut the lid of the box. The clasp latched on its own. 

Ray looked like he was panicking, for once, his eyes were right. They were reacting correctly to the world around him, even if she wasn't. He stood up and was pacing in front of her desk, arms flailing, placing tissues on the desk in front of her, moving the offensive can away from the desk.

She picked her phone off of the desk and scrolled to Diggle's number. She hit send. 

“Felicity?” She could hear him. In the background she could hear baby Sara screaming, Lyla trying to soothe the child. _If they have a son they shouldn't name him Oliver._ “FELICITY!” He barked her name into the phone.

She tried to speak, she opened her mouth, she commanded her vocal chords to work, but nothing intelligible came out, only a strangled sob. She hung up the phone and tapped out a text.

> To John Diggle: Come to Palmer. Can't talk. Bad.
> 
> Reply: I'm on my way.
> 
> To John Diggle: I'm not in danger, but it's not good.

She dropped her phone into her lap. She pushed her glasses onto her head, and wiped the tears from her face. 

Ray's voice began to come through the ringing too. She could make out words. Words like her name, and words of concern, question words, words , words, words, he used so many words. _Clarity._

“I'm calling my physician.” His pace was frantic, he was digging through his pockets looking for his phone. He was moving so fast it was a blur. 

“No.” Her voice finally finding it's footing. “I need to go.” 

She opened her desk drawer and pulled out her handbag. She put her phone into it, and moved her glasses to their rightful spot on her face. _Nothing was a blur, you were blind._ She pulled her thumb drive and VPN token out of her computer, and added them to the bag.

He stopped and stared at her dumbfounded. His eyes were still too big, and too brown, and nothing about him was right. _Get up. Get up Felicity, Get up._

She tested her weight, and was happy when she felt the muscles in her legs work again. She was slowly becoming whoever she was going to be now. The only way to do this fully was to escape.

“I won't be back.” She said gathering her purse, and her coat, and The Box. _The Gift of the Demon._

She moved swiftly, she knew this room like the back of her hand. It had been a constant in her life. _It had been his, she had been his._ She scurried to the elevators, but Ray was hot on her heels.

“Are you alright? Did something happen? What can I do to fix this? Let me help you Felicity.” He was insistent, he lacked self control, she could see how easily he was shaken. _You aren't made of the same stuff, you will never be what he is, was. You are not a hero._

The elevator bell dinged as the door opened. She stepped in and immediately pushed the button that made the doors close. The urgency of her strikes she hoped would inspire the machine to react.

“Ray, I need you to have HR email me our bereavement policy.” The words came out of her mouth, but she didn't remember telling herself to say them. It was a robotic response, an easy way to get out of explaining anything to this flustered, bug eyed, man shaped person. The words didn't even sound like her. They sounded like they came out of a stranger. 

This was what happened when things changed to before and after. This was how things were.

The doors slid shut and Ray made no attempt to stop them. For the first time since she opened it (that hateful beautiful thing) she felt her heart beat. It was steadier than she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and Comments make my world go round. They inspire me to keep going down a path.
> 
> And if you just need to get out some of your midseason feels, you can do that too. I'm here for you.


	3. Gift of the Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is the scroll signed in blood? What's in The Box? Maybe it's kittens! (it's not kittens)
> 
> Team Arrow inspects The Box for proof of death or suggestion of life.

The car ride to the Foundry was mostly silent. Well, it was silent on Felicity's end. Diggle tried to talk, and gave up when she was unresponsive. Felicity stared out the window, The Box held securely between her two hands on the safety of her lap.

In the short time she had spent with the item she noted several things. She was making a mental list, she did this often. Made lists, not spent time with strange boxes.

> 1\. The Box isn't very heavy. Human ashes would weigh more she assumes.  
>  2\. The contents were not leaking any mystery fluids.  
>  3\. The Box did not smell.  
>  4\. It was beautiful

She hated the last thing. She hated it in her bones. 

* * *

When they finally got to the Foundry she placed the box on the stainless steel table. The table that she stood around that first night here, worrying about a man who trusted her enough to reveal his secret identity. The same table that had served as a triage center, a hospital bed, and once, _only once,_ a death bed. Now it held only The Box.

Roy was there, Diggle must have sent up the Arrow signal. _He's so young, only a child._ He and Diggle stared at her expectantly. She only stared at The Box.

It was quiet. This was why she needed to be here, in this space, with men who understood and respected silence. She needed this space.

The suit stood watch, in a box of it's very own. It's presence almost made it easy to think that Oliver was just out of town, the suit's constant vigil suggested that someone would return to take up it's mantel at any moment. 

'Felicity?” Diggle snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Felicity? What happened?”

She breathed in and out. Steeling herself against against reality, she controlled her breath like the lady in the yoga video taught her.

“I received this today.” She gestured at The Box. In the foundry's light it almost looked like it was painted a deep dark blue and not black. It was like a chameleon, adapting to its surroundings, the thought ran a chill down her spine. Almost as if on cue, the latch slipped open. _Is this thing alive?_

She lifted the lid and handed the scroll to Diggle. As he opened it she wandered over to the shelving unit that they kept the medical and science supplies on. She knew that the kit, that Barry had adorably labeled Felicity Smoak's Forensic Science Starter Kit, was on it. She was still no forensic scientist, but he and Caitlin had shown her a few things. She located it and placed it on the table.

John handed the scroll to Roy as she rifled through the kit pulling out various eye droppers and swabs and boxes. As he read it, Roy's face turned quickly from one of confusion to an anger tinged with sadness. _Are emotive eyes a Team Arrow prerequisite?_

“I, I need to check something, can you hold it open?” She asked of Roy. 

Her hands were shaking so badly that the first drop of distilled water she tried to get on the swab missed. It bounced off the table as so many tears before it had. The second drop landed on it's mark. She lightly rubbed the swab over the edge of one of the signature blocks until some of the material had transferred.

“What are you doing?” Diggle asked.

“Just a second.” She replied tersely, trying to open the bottle of phenolphthalein while holding the swab. Diggle grabbed it, opening it and handing it to her. She gestured toward a third bottle labeled 'peroxide,' “Can you open that one too?”

She let two drops fall onto the stained swab and set the bottle down. She took a deep breath as she let a single drop of peroxide fall onto the swab. Almost instantly the swab turned a bright fuchsia, it was the same color as half of the lipsticks she owned. She dropped it like a hot match. _I've got to stop being right._

“What just happened?” Roy asked.

“It's called a Kastle-Meyer test, Barry uses it to detect blood.” 

She picked up another swab and dropped some of the water on it. She swabbed the edges of both signature blocks, and put the swab in a long thin box, taping the ends shut.

“So, it's signed in blood? Is that like some sort of League of Assassins thing?” Roy asked with a disgusted tone.

“I don't know who's blood it is.” Felicity replied. 

“I think we have a pretty good idea, the letter was pretty much to the point.” Roy answered.

Felicity slammed her hands down on the table causing the bottles to fall over, and the sound to ricochet through the basement. “No. We don't know who's blood it is,” she said through gritted teeth glaring at him, “which is why I'm going to send it to Caitlin.”

Roy stepped back from the table with his hands up.

“Felicity, it's okay, I'll call Lyla, ARGUS can rush the DNA tests.” Diggle already had his phone in his hand. She swatted it away, it clattered on the metal table.

“They can't know.”

“They'll be faster Felicity, she can put a flag on it so they don't read the results just provide them. We can trust Lyla.”

“We can't trust ARGUS. They can't know that Oliver is gone. If it's his blood, they'll know.” She was getting worked up again. It wasn't her paranoia talking, she had dug around in a few of their servers. They had DNA profiles on a lot of people: agents, ex-agents, operatives, detainees. She had seen Oliver's profile on the list. Why it was dated prior to 2012 she didn't know, but it was in there.

“No one can know outside of the three of us.” She said, trying to be calm.

“But you're going to tell Caitlin?” Diggle said.

“That worked out so well for us last time.” Roy added.

“She didn't search the profile, she developed the profile and sent it to me, she'll do it again. She won't look into it too deeply.” 

She cleaned up the bottles and put them back in the kit. The three of them stood around in an unsettled silence. 

Finally Roy addressed the pink elephant in the room, “What else is in there?”

“I don't know.” She said shaking her head. She had theories, lots of theories. “I saw the creepy scroll and called Diggle.” _They don't need to hear about the momentary loss of control, they don't need to know._

Diggle gently removed the green paper package from The Box. It was larger than it seemed should have been possible. But then again, there was a chance that size didn't mean much to her anymore. Ever since opening that box everything felt smaller, the foundry was smaller, his suit seemed smaller, the world around her was shrinking, but most of all she felt smaller.

He cut the strings with his pocket knife and gingerly unfolded the paper. It reminded Felicity of when she was young and her mother would raise holy hell if she tore the wrapping paper off of her gifts. Wrapping paper was a luxury that a Vegas waitress couldn't always afford while trying to keep her child in books and glasses. Her grandmother always wrapped her presents in the comics page from the Sunday paper so Felicity could rip it off. She loved tearing into those packages.

This paper? She saw no reason not to tear it into confetti and/or set it on fire. They wouldn't be reusing it.

The contents inside of the paper were exceptional, not for what was present, but for what was missing. They included:

One yellowish-greenish canvas cross-body bag, empty  
One grey knit hat  
One dark grey sweater and white tee-shirt  
One cell phone, missing SIM card and battery

All of these items had been with Oliver when he left. But there was something very important missing.

“His coat isn't here.” Felicity said hollowly, “I saw him grab this big winter coat when he was headed out.” A spark of hope was trying to ignite within her. “Wherever he was going was cold. That was all I could deduce from what he took with him. The hat was in his bag, and he grabbed the coat on the way out.” She said, replaying the memory in her mind. _I love you._ She pinched her eyes closed, pushing this memory away.

“The herbs are missing too. I saw him put a pouch of those island herbs in that bag.” Roy added, hope creeping into his voice as well.

“The Box is a little small for the coat, and someone could have taken the herbs out of the bag.” Diggle, always a voice of reason, spoke words they knew but were choosing to ignore.

“Why would you only return some of someone's stuff but not all of it?” Roy asked, “If the League was trying to tell us that,” Roy stopped, choosing his words carefully, “this debt was paid, why wouldn't they send everything back?”

“Cost of shipping? I don't know, Roy.” Diggle said, shaking is his head.

“They didn't ship it, Malcolm Merlyn said they delivered it to him.” As the words came out of her mouth Felicity realized she never told them how she came to be in possession of The Box. Roy and John stared at her with disbelief, “I guess I sort of left that detail out.”

“Malcolm Merlyn gave you this?” Diggle's words came out slower and sharper, it was a tone she had only ever heard him use with Oliver.

“Yes. He said he didn't open it, that it wasn't for him.” She was trying to remember those last few minutes of life in the TBTB, “He bowed when he gave it to me, said it was League tradition in times like this or something?”

“He was one of them, maybe they thought it would be easier to get it to us.” Roy offered.

“Nyssa knows how to find us.” John replied curtly.

“Maybe she thought we'd kill her?” Roy asked, realizing the insanity of his words as they left his mouth. 

_An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind_ “She knows we wouldn't do that, it would start a war we couldn't fight.” Felicity stated plainly.

They stood in silence for a few minutes digesting everything that had happened.

“Someone needs to patrol tonight in the hood.” Diggle said quietly. “We have to keep up appearances until we know what's going on.”

“I need to go home.” Felicity said as the exhausting realization of her day hit her. “I'll get this sample shipped out tomorrow.”

“I can take it to Central City and be back in a few hours, but I don't have a car.” Roy said, knowing that they didn't approve of him stealing cars.

“I don't have my car either,” Felicity said looking at Diggle, “but if I did you could take it.”

They formulated a plan for the evening. Diggle would drop her and Roy off at her car at Palmer, Roy would drop her off at home and use her car to take the sample to Caitlin.

Before they left Felicity took a photo of the scroll and the signature. She was going to send the signature to a friend from college who knew someone with a background in Asian languages. Maybe they could tell her what it said. 

She watered the fern, and collected the few personal objects she had left at the Foundry. Everything was small and fit in her purse. Roy and Diggle didn't need to know that she didn't plan on returning here. Just being in this space, even with an inkling of hope, was too much. She would still help them, but she couldn't do it from inside of this box, not with it's walls closing in on her. 

Roy put the items back in The Box and set it inside the case that held Oliver's uniform. _Boxes inside of boxes, it never ends._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the greatest chapter of all time, but it's getting us where we're going.
> 
> Love it? Hate it? Tell me. I feed on your feedback!


	4. A Nightmare Dressed in a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity's dream the night that they receive the box will forever haunt her and her change her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This gets dark, like dark-dark. But it needed to be done.
> 
> Everything in _Italics_ is Felicity's dream.

_The early morning sunlight streamed through the window. Something wasn't right, she never forgot to close the shades on a Friday night. Saturday mornings were her 'sleep until noon' days._

_She looked through squinted eyes towards the window, maybe she could just reach over and grab the shade's string and pull it shut._

_That would be hard with the man shaped torso blocking her reach._

_Great, she thought her one night stand phase was long behind her. And based on just how lean and muscular said torso was, she clearly went on the prowl for a very specific type. Torso's head was tucked low, but she would have put money that his hair was dark blonde and that he had crazy blue eyes. His breathing was slow and it was clear he was still deep in sleep._

_She had two options. Get up and close the shade or roll over and cover her head in a pillow until Random Oliver Shaped Bar Guy got out of her bed._

_Suddenly it hit her, she didn't have a hangover. This wasn't a bar guy. Which meant she had possibly brought Ray Palmer back to her apartment in a text book example of temporary insanity. She remembered Oliver leaving, but couldn't recall why, it felt so distant in her. When she tried it felt like sword going through her chest._

_'Oh god, I slept with Crazy Eyes Palmer, he's never going to stop stalking me.' It was hard to catch her breath for a moment. She knew this feeling well, it was her 'poor life decisions' feeling. It was why she took benzos, well that and occasional crippling anxiety both of the social and general life sorts._

_She rolled onto her left side, pulling the pillow over her head. Maybe he would just get up and leave if she played dead. That was a better option than an awkward morning of 'Thanks for the sex, but I was only using you as a substitute for someone else, and now I feel like a ho-bag. See you at work on Monday!'_

_She felt the weight of the body next to her shift. It was rolling over. Spooning was about to happen and there was nothing she could do to stop it short of jumping up and screaming fire._

_She felt an arm wrap around her, pulling her toward it's owner. She slid across the sheets toward him. Her ass cradled an impressive example of morning wood. When she was tucked into him, she felt him deeply inhale her hair. She hadn't been this mortified to have a man in her bed since that time in college when she got wasted with some friends, danced on a townie bar and took home a guy named Randy._

_“Mmm Felicity.” She knew the voice instantly, a chill sunk into her bones. It was sleep soaked and quiet, but she knew that voice. Her mind and her ears warred with each other. The back she saw wasn't right, the tattoo, the scars, they weren't there._

_Her ears were clearly playing tricks on her._

_When she felt his lips against her neck it felt like a current ran through her. “Wake up baby,” he said, nuzzling her ear, running his hand up and down softly between her breasts. The ever present calluses from pulling a bow string were absent, even with gloves, his fingers always had calluses. “Come on, wake up for me.”_

_She could feel him rubbing himself against her ass, his hand moving lower, sliding between her legs. Her breath hitched, giving away that she wasn't sleeping._

_“Hey.” He whispered into her ear, his voice melting her insides._

_Oliver. It was Oliver. But it couldn't. Something in the back of her mind was fighting this. Oliver Queen was naked in her bed, spooning her in morning sunlight, and never had anything felt more wrong._

_She didn't want to turn around. She needed to wake up. But his hand was working absolute magic between her legs, and all she really wanted to do was to fall into this moment and drown._

_“Oh.” She couldn't control her body's response, no matter how much her mind said that something wasn't right, her body betrayed her, because this felt righteous._

_“Roll over.” He said, his voice gruffer than before, his breathing more staggered._

_She rubbed herself against him until her slick folds opened and ran his length, “No, like this.” Lazy early morning sex was once of her guilty pleasures, side by side was her guiltiest._

_He groaned as she slid down him once more, grinding herself against him. She felt him shift behind her, and then he slowly pushed into her._

_“Oh god I was right.” Her mind-mouth filter failing her._

_He chuckled as he stilled behind her. “What was that?” He asked, digging the fingers of his right hand into her hip._

_“Having you inside me, it's just, fucking amazing.”_

_“It's nice to know that it hasn't gotten old.” He laughed, beginning to pump in and out of her. His left arm wrapped under her, clasping the hand of the arm she was laying on._

_Curiosity killed the cat, she couldn't help it, she knew those hands, she needed to see them, so she opened her eyes and was confused by the sight before her. A simple silver band on his ring finger. He was married? She would have thought harder about it had he not been picking up the pace, bouncing her off of him while holding her in place._

_He reached around and rolled her clit between his fingers drawing sounds out of her that were inhuman, and kicking her right over the cliff. The building heat in her core exploded in waves around him, pushing him to set a relentless pace pounding into her._

_As he came he gripped her to him, stilling her body against him, she could feel him pulsing inside of her. “I love you,” he muttered into her hair, sparking a memory she couldn't place, “I love you, I love you, I love you...” He chanted into her hair, until he suddenly stopped._

_He released her, scrambling away._

_“You've taken your last life.” He said, calmly, deliberately, facing the ceiling._

_Felicity was confused, drunk in the afterglow, and couldn't control herself, she rolled over to look at him._

_His body was a clean slate, no scars, no tattoos, but his eyes were full of movement, darting back and forth, watching something happen that she could not see. Within the span of two minutes his breathing increased in pace until he unexpectedly held it._

_“Oliver?” She asked reaching out to him, but he recoiled from her, grabbing at his throat, gasping for breath. His eyes huge with shock._

_She sat up on her knees, panicking, she didn't know what was happening, and clearly he didn't either._

_Suddenly a wound opened in his side, blood running out, turning her cream colored sheets a terrible dark crimson. The hot fluid pooled around her knees. His eyes glassed over, the panic subsiding to simple realization._

_“OLIVER?!?!” She screamed. He looked over to her, blinking, but looking beyond her, or maybe through her. “OLIVER?!?!”_

_He coughed once, and on the second cough blood sputtered from between his lips. She looked down and a chest wound had opened up, oozing blood. There was so much blood, it was everywhere. She looked once more at his eyes, they locked on hers before he blinked once more and something changed in them, they were hollow._

_She reached out with both hands, putting pressure on the chest wound, trying to quell the bleeding. “Stay with me Oliver,” She was trying to remember what John would be doing right now. She didn't see her cell phone anywhere, she couldn't call for help. Her mind was racing, this wasn't how this should end, but somehow a tickle in the back of her mind knew it could only end this way._

_His flesh was turning cold under her hands, when she looked down at them she noticed the bands on her own left ring finger. One, a vintage looking diamond engagement ring, the other a simple silver band._

_She choked back a sob as the blood pushed it's way through her fingers, coating the rings, and the stone. “Stay with me!” She screamed._

When Felicity woke, she was drenched in sweat and sitting up in bed, facing the empty spot next to her, her hands shaking in front of her, hovering over the imagined location of Oliver Queen, her hand bearing no rings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is everyone okay? I'm sorry to do this to you dear readers, but the muse wants, what the muse wants...
> 
> As always feedback is my personal crack.


	5. The Ghost of Christmas Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity only leaves her home for two things: ice cream and wine.
> 
> Felicity kills her father (sort of), battles Errol Flynn, and learns to only trust Netflix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear Readers, 
> 
> Your words of encouragement and kudos are humbling to say the least. I can't believe the incredible support you've given me for this story. So, here's a special Christmas gift (even if you don't celebrate Christmas, please consider it a winter gift because you are awesome and deserve nice things).
> 
> Thank you!  
> -blackeyedgurl
> 
> As always: this chapter wouldn't be possible without Jennygirl7 talking me off a cliff (sorry about the pun), when I think I'm way off base or totally boring. 
> 
> It is also dedicated to my grey writing hoodie. Because it's totally normal to dedicate writing to inanimate objects right?

If there was one thing Felicity could most definitely say about Ray Palmer, it was that he had follow through. There was an email waiting for her when she got home the night that she asked for it outlining the allowable time off based on the relationship of the employee and the decedent. A parent got you a whole month of leave, and Felicity had a parent that might as well be dead.

She spent most of Saturday manufacturing a death certificate and a convincing obituary from a quaint east of the Mississippi locale that no one would bother to double check on. Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, any one of them would be far enough removed that no one would look too close. The obituary was important because Felicity didn't share a last name with her “father.”

She spent a lot of time coming up with a name for this mystery man. She didn't want to use the name of the man that her mother had cried for days over after he left, that was a real person. This was a person that was no more real to her than a ghost. Unfortunately Ray was kind of nerdy so her initial choice of Rupert Giles went out the window pretty fast. _If you couldn't have a real dad, who wouldn't want Rupert Giles to be their dad?_

Instead she settled on a mixed fandom name of Dean Alexander Reynolds. A little Supernatural, a touch of Buffy and a final touch of Firefly. No one in HR would put those pieces together, and she doubted Ray would figure it out either. She read over about a dozen obituaries to find the right balance of announcement and privacy so no one would try to send flowers.

> Dean Alexander Reynolds passed suddenly on Friday December 19, 2014. He is survived by his daughter, Starling City resident Felicity Meghan Smoak, and a son, Randy John Reynolds. A private service and burial will be arranged by family. Donations to the Lake County Animal Welfare Society are suggested in lieu of flowers.

A sudden heart attack, a random half brother, no additional family? Yes she could justify a month's absence for this. And she was pretty sure that the listed animal shelter would have no trouble feeding and housing their critters for a while thanks to a large donation from one Ray Palmer. She emailed off the documentation to HR, and breathed a sigh of relief. One month to get her shit together.

While going through these motions, never far from her mind was the morbid irony that everything she was doing for a fake man, was something she could have been doing for a real life man that wouldn't be coming home any time soon. _Not soon. Not ever._ A man who was as real to her as this father was not. It didn't seem fair. But none of this was fair.

Worse still, was her realization that Christmas was this week. It was a holiday she hadn't given much thought to for most of her life, outside of the unavoidable retail barrage and subsequent sale shopping. After meeting Oliver Queen though, she associated it with him, the joy of the season, the happiness, the togetherness, the trees and decorations, all of it was Oliver to her. He was always a little brighter, his smiles came a little easier around this time of year; it didn't hurt that green featured predominantly in the season. 

Since the time in her office she hadn't really broken down. It all still seemed surreal, like it wasn't really happening. As if any moment there would be a knock at the door, or a call on her phone, or even just a man in green leather standing in her kitchen, staring her down. She thought that if he had really died, that she would have somehow felt it, _a disturbance in the force_.

She thought she was doing fine, she told herself over and over that she was fine, and she was, until a commercial on TV broke her. It was for a jeweler, or coffee, or UPS, or something ridiculous, but that's usually how break-downs go, something stupid sets them off. As the opening bars of the tune started she didn't immediately catch the song, had she, she would have changed the station like she did for the Sarah McLachlan ASPCA ones, she always kept an emergency channel on stand-by to avoid them. 

_'Christmas Eve will find me...' A snowy scene, some random couple in a photo in a frame on a mantel, smiling, happy. A knock at the door. The woman receives a gift from the delivery man, she opens it. It's a box, a gift from the man in the photo. He isn't there with her. 'Where the lovelight gleams...'_

Her breath hitched as she heard the words, the TV was out to get her, she should not have strayed from Netflix. Tears fought their way through her breaking resolve, through her failing mask of coping.

_'I'll be home for Christmas...' The woman has tears in her eyes, overwhelmed with the gift from miles away, pics up her iPad and Skypes with the man in the photo, who is in some sort of military uniform.'...if only in my dreams.'_

She was undone, there were tears, gasping, sobbing, body convulsing tears. It felt like she wept for hours, and every time she thought she was about to stop, it would start all over. If she could have remembered what the commercial was for she would have considered destroying their website as revenge for this onslaught of emotions. Instead, she laid on her couch, wearing Oliver's grey hoodie (which she had stolen weeks before he left under the guise of washing it, thank god she had never gotten around to it), hood up, crying until she passed out, surrounded by the smell of him. Thankfully, it was a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Keeping John and Roy off her case and out of her business was harder than avoiding Ray. After the incident at Verdant the night Oliver left, she had transferred all relevant information off of the company issued phone _never use the company issued phone, especially if the owner of said company is a bit of a stalker_ and left it in her desk. The calls and texts were transferred to her new phone, but the other one was always on and charging, locked in the bottom drawer.

Only once did Ray send her a text that said something to the effect of: 'You're supposed to be in your office, but I don't see you.' She responded something semi-snarky about the legality of tracking employees and suggesting that Ray stop looking for her.

Roy and John? They didn't need GPS or cell phone tracking, they knew where she lived, they knew how to find her. They didn't feel that things like 'personal time' applied to her. They wanted to keep their eyes on her, they were worried about her. She figured if she just cooperated and helped them out, she could work remotely from her apartment. She didn't need to be in the foundry to hack into cameras or dig through financials. Not that she needed to do any of those things, as shockingly, there was very little for them to do. Either the Arrow really did have a chilling effect on crime, or Oliver was a lot better at stirring up trouble than they were. 

After the third day, and several reassurances that she would let them know the results of Caitlin's DNA test, and that she could assist them from anywhere she had an internet connection, they agreed to not drag her to the Foundry. She was grateful for this, the last time Diggle stopped by he threatened to return with baby Sara, _she couldn't say no to a baby_. She couldn't go there, that tomb, with the suit, with the box, with reminders everywhere, a space haunted with words both spoken and not.

* * *

Felicity spent Christmas at home, on the couch, binging on Netflix, and drug-store ice cream and wine. The local drug-store was thankfully open on Christmas Eve, so she stocked up, not bothering to put on real clothes, showing up in her fleece kitty pajama pants, her Uggs and the hoodie. She did remember to put on a bra, which was a tiny victory, but she forgot to brush her hair, which was easily disguised with the hood. This was her uniform, this hood was her refuge.

She wasn't sure which would go better with mint chocolate chip, red or white, so she bought three bottles of each. She wasn't a wine connoisseur, she usually let other people pick the wine, and just drank whatever was handed to her. _Some people go to wine tastings, I'll just host my own._ She wasn't drinking away her feelings, she wasn't pulling a Laurel. She was just trying to get drunk enough at night to sleep without dreaming, and while her benzos would do the same, the wine was cheaper and safer. She wasn't trying to destroy her guilt, she was trying to survive.

* * *

The day after Christmas Caitlin emailed her the DNA profile she developed. Just as Felicity feared, it was Oliver's blood. There was so little of it on the scroll that it didn't really verify that he was dead, but when all the pieces were put together, it revealed a pretty obvious picture.

Caitlin had tried to call her the Saturday after she emailed the results, but Felicity was still asleep. There was no reason to be out of bed before noon. Caitlin left a voice mail letting her know that the sample was a familiar match for the sample from Sara's arrows, and asking Felicity to call her and tell her what was going on and if they could help. Felicity deleted the voice mail immediately.

She later texted Diggle and Roy to let them know that the blood was Oliver's. Neither responded, there was nothing to say that they weren't all thinking on their own.

Her friend from college that she emailed the signature blocks to was no help. He even checked with some friends in the Asian language department at the university he worked at, and no one could really make them out. One thought that one of the blocks said something about an 'illusion or phantom' but couldn't really be sure, and he fully admitted that he was guessing.

Christmas had come and gone, Star City remained quiet, and Felicity continued to wear the hood. Maybe it was her version of a funeral shroud, maybe it was her safety blanket, or maybe it was just easier, life under the hood. _I understand now._

In the week since the box arrived, not much had changed. Yes, she killed off an imaginary father, which was a new experience. _No blood on these hands, but so much on so many others._ But Oliver was still gone. The letter was signed in his blood, and in a code probably only members of the League of Assassins could understand, some strange tongue of the Demon. _Of course he has his own language, he has everything else._

The biggest change? After a bottle of Merlot, Felicity and Errol Flynn had a bit of a disagreement, resulting in her Robin Hood print being exiled to the spare bedroom, in the back of the closet, behind the spare bedding, where she would not be able to see him, and where he could not mock her. _He started it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is a WHOPPER. If you want to read it sooner, I suggest you tell me all about it. 
> 
> Or you could tell me about your favorite inanimate object, or what Santa got you, or about your pet, or your weird writing habits, or something totally awesome you saw on Tumblr.


	6. The League of Extraordinary Assholes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felicity makes a change, and a life changing phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize for how long it's taken to get this chapter up. A rewatch of the series derailed a plan, and a sick cat derailed my brain. But we are here now. 
> 
> I would like to thank all of you for the amazing feedback. It really keeps me moving, and inspires me to write faster (hint, hint). I hope you enjoy this one!

Three weeks after the arrival of the box Felicity snapped. 

She didn't have a great grasp on time. The missed calls from her mother and grandmother reminded her that she missed most of Hanukkah. New Years passed without a thought. She abused her Netflix account and DVD collection. _I'm Spike, not Willow. Oliver is Logan, Ray is Donut._ The guys at the pizza delivery place started to know her by name. She worked half way through the Thai-delivery place menu before her intestines went on strike. 

She didn't cry. She barely spoke. Even when helping Roy and Diggle out she mostly communicated via text message. It was just easier. She couldn't hear their voices, she couldn't bear to not hear his.

She hadn't taken the hood off. It stopped smelling like him days after she put it on, but it didn't matter, it was a piece of him. A piece she could take, and wear like armor.

The hood though,was problematic. Well not the hood itself, but her own hair. It was too long. She was overdue for an appointment to get it cut and colored before Oliver left. Her hair grew like a weed to begin with, a six week schedule had to be maintained to keep up the ruse of being blonde. _I keep your secrets._ Over eleven weeks? She was starting to look like Madonna in the eighties. 

So she did what any irrational grief stricken hermit would do, she cut it off. She didn't go all Britney Spears and shave her head. No, she pulled it into a loose low ponytail at the nape of her neck and cut just above the band. It looked terrible, but it felt better. She felt lighter. The front skimmed her collarbones, the back was just above her hairline. 

The color she debated for a good 30 minutes in the drugstore. Black? _Been there_ Blonde? _Comfortable, safe._ Red? _Too Black Widow, though tempting._ Brown? _So many options, dark, light, medium, warm, cool._ Her head spun. The wall of color was overwhelming. She gave up on it. She'd live with the roots. _A personal calendar, like the rings on a tree. Maybe when it grows all the way out I'll know who I am without him._

* * *

She'd spent much of her time trying to figure out more about the League of Assassins. Googling didn't do much except bring up urban, well more like rural, legends about a group of ninja-like figures that came in the night and eliminated evil. All of them read the same way, a vicious warlord, a tribal leader with an affection for very young girls, women who enslaved children to work in their factories, drug dealers decimating a city, every single story lead back to the death of someone who was seen as evil. In a different context, she'd root for the LoA. _Oliver was not evil, why would Ra's destroy him?_

She'd traveled to the dark bowels of the internet, places that most people couldn't conceive existed, looking for more information. It's not like the LoA had a website, or, from what she could tell, a wi-fi connection. But still, there was nothing.

She understood that Oliver told Ra's that he killed Sara. There was a blood debt which had to be paid. Which was ironic, because not even a year ago, Ra's had sent assassins to retrieve Sara, dead or alive. It was fine if her death came at the hands of one of his own, but not at the hands of someone else. The Ra's al Ghul LoA Code of Conduct book must have been the size of a Bible.

She hacked spy satellites to look into Nanda Parbat, but unsurprisingly, not a single one ever passed over it. She suspected that Ra's had a long reach and understood agreements with the world that he was not to be noticed, mentioned, or acknowledged. He would do the dirty work, as long as no one looked too closely. To the world he was more instrument than villain, but to Felicity, he was the mustache twirling monster at the end of her book.

When she looked deeper into the man himself she found nothing but fairy tales that sounded straight out of her Netflix queue. 'He never ages.' 'He has the strength of 15 warriors.' _WTF, is he a vampire?_ 'He was trained by the last Ronin.' 'His rule began 75 years ago.' 'He looked Death in the face and laughed.' 'No man who has faced him has ever survived.' 

The last myth was the one that hit the hardest.

There was talk of magic, resurrections and illusions. There were stories of the Gods punishing Ra's for defying Death too many times by making sure he could not produce a male heir. Felicity learned that Nyssa had an older sister, Thalia, whom was steeped in as much mystery as her father. Nyssa wasn't as good as her father or sister at remaining a ghost to the world, but maybe it only seemed that way as Felicity had met her on multiple occasions.

Nyssa's familiarity lead to Felicity making a mistake. It didn't seem like a mistake when she did it, but her judgment was also clouded by a few vodka and sodas.

After Sara died, Felicity cloned her phone. It made sense at the time, trying to track down who might be responsible, knowing who Sara was in contact with was important. An unforeseen consequence of this act was having Nyssa's cell phone number. Why Nyssa, daughter of what Felicity could only assume was the assassin equivalent of the Amish, even had a cell phone was irrelevant. The LoA flew on airplanes, and had to have a way to get their orders, right? Smoke signals and carrier pigeons couldn't get the job done anymore, they had to adapt.

That's how she found herself, half drunk, on a random Wednesday night, almost a month after The Box arrived, punching the number to Nyssa's cell phone into her own.

“This is Nyssa Radko, Heir to the Demon.” Nyssa's cool, confident voice startled Felicity, she didn't expect her to answer. Felicity couldn't help but giggle, in some weird way she felt like a 7th grader making prank calls, 

“Heir? More like Spare to the Demon. How's your big sister?”

“Excuse me? Who is this?” Nyssa almost sounded like she was caught off guard, almost.

“What? No caller ID? You should really look into a better plan.”

“Your number came through as private, but you already know that.”

“Two hints: Starling City. The Arrow.”

“This must be Felicity Smoak, the assistant, I remember you.”

“Assistant? I was his partner.” The fog of grief started to crawl into her.

“Yes, _was_ is the appropriate tense.” The timbre and tone of Nyssa's voice never changed, it unnerved Felicity. “He was brave, he lasted longer than most. He fought honorably.”

“HONOR?” Felicity choked on the word. “For a group hell bent on honor, your father clearly had no problem killing an innocent honorable man.” She didn't know when she started crying, but now, she was yelling into the phone, tears staining her words.

“Innocence is relative. All men are corrupted in their souls. _The sins of the father shall be visited upon the children._ Honor cannot be a lie.”

“What about the sins of your father?” She spat the words, tinting each poison.

“As heir it is my duty to bear them, and I do.” Nyssa's voice fell with the last three words. _So she does have a soul._ A heavy silence filled the line.

“When will the League of Assholes keep up their end of honor and return his remains to his family?”

“We will not. He was given a warrior's funeral, as Sara should have received. A sky burial. His remains carried to the heavens on the wings of a raptor. His energy passing to a creature strong enough to scale the mountain, hungry enough to take what it needs, and wise enough to know when it's had enough.”

“So you can return his personal effects, but you will not return him to me?”

“We've done no such thing, and will not.”

Felicity didn't understand what Nyssa meant. She wasn't sure if her mind was clouded by the vodka or the grief, but something didn't sit right with her. The Box. Why didn't Nyssa know about The Box?

“So the debt is paid?” Felicity asked, echoing the words on the scroll.

“There was no debt, this was a trial, and he lost.”

Felicity swallowed hard. Rage, grief, confusion swirled through her. “So you've sent no one to Starling City to even tell us what happened?”

“Sara told me you were smart, when he didn't return that should have been your answer.”

“So no one was sent here?” She squeaked out, she felt so small.

“Grief clouds many things, clearly it is clouding your mind. We sent no one.”

“Oh.” Felicity felt the creeping claustrophobia she felt in the Foundry seeping back in.

“Do not call me again. We will stay out of Starling City, we bear no quarrel with you.” Nyssa said, taking a pause. “He is with Sara now, I know how this hurts, and I am sorry for your pain.” Nyssa offered, in the closest thing to a comforting tone Felicity thought the woman could manage.

The line went dead.

There would be no body. No physical way to demonstrate that he no longer walked this world. Once again years would pass, and eventually the state would declare Oliver Queen to be dead by proxy. Thea would not believe her if she told her. She'd demand proof. Captain Lance, a man rooted in evidence for so many years would also not believe. Laurel would believe, which scared her even more, not knowing what extreme Laurel would turn to this time to deal with her grief. Someone would have to tell Barry. They couldn't lie to him forever, but they couldn't tell him the truth either. He'd try to find Ra's, and while he was fast, something told her that it wouldn't matter, that the newly minted Leauge of Assholes would be holding a second sky burial, this time for a man who wore red instead of green.

Felicity cried herself to sleep on her couch, curled in a ball, hood drawn around her. When she closed her eyes, she didn't feel like the world was crashing in on her. With her eyes closed she could see him, with her eyes closed, she could live in this denial.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm already writing the next chapter. The goal is to have this story done by the time the hiatus is over. 
> 
> So tell me what you think! Thanks for continuing this adventure with me!


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